1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to simulation and, in particular, to automatic generation of test patterns for simulation. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and program for automatically generating pseudo random test patterns using Markov chains.
2. Description of Related Art
In order to verify operation of a system through simulation, memory access test patterns must be generated. The patterns must be generated automatically, since the number of transactions driven by the patterns must be very large.
Random pattern generation is a typical approach for automatically generating test patterns. However, purely random patterns do not tend to produce transactions that test the limits of the system being simulated. Often, simulation is used to attempt to “break” the hardware being tested. Ideally, the designer would like to use the exact test patterns that will likely cause the hardware to fail. Thus, if the hardware withstands the stress of the test patterns, then the design is sound.
Examples of patterns that do tend to test the system limits are patterns having bursts and strides. But purely random pattern generation does not generally produce burst-like and stride-like patterns.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to automatically generate patterns that have desired tendencies.